More than two thousand demonstrators protested at Shannon airport today against the use of the airport as a refuelling point by US military aircraft ferrying troops to the Middle East.
Anti-war protesters, some dressed in white overalls with "UN Weapons Inspector" daubed on the back, gathered at the airport a short distance from where US transport planes have been coming and going with increased frequency in recent weeks as America gears up for a possible confrontation with Iraq.
"It beggars belief that these planes wouldn't carry close-support weapons such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. What's happening here has more or less ended our neutrality," Mr Edward Horgan, a former UN peacekeeper with the Irish army and one of the main organisers of the protest, told reporters.
"We believe the majority of the Irish people are opposed to war in Iraq. It will be a crime against humanity and it must be stopped," he said.
Flanked by dozens of gardaí, the more than 2,000 protesters marched for around a mile from Shannon town to the airport, waving banners bearing slogans including "No Innocent Blood On Irish Hands", "No To American Terrorism", and "No Blood For Oil".